Censorship on A2K ?

Signatures were never "html enabled".

Yes there is "censorship" on A2K. Don't post a link in your signature with a call to action.

There is no right to "freely chosen signatures" on this board. This is a privately owned and operated site and we reserve the right to take the measures we see fit in order to combat spam.

The prohibition of signature links with a call to action is just one step.

Didn't your momma teach you to say please...

wolf, I am not here to say please. If you want to use that link use a subtle link (small size no huge fonts colors) and don't use a call to action.
Those are the rules and they apply to everyone. It's not conditional on us having to cajole you into keeping the rules.

You didn't say "please" when you posted the link.

(clicking leather boots)

Oh come on! Just put it back without a call to action. Your current link is perfect.

Ok. End of story.

Kewl

What do you mean by a call to action. Use an example please.

"click here" "come visit" "buy my crap", that only applies to third party links though.

Through the link, I wanted people to adress the media with their complaints about the cover(up)age of 9/11. Let it be clear I didn't try to promote my uncle's vacuum cleaners biz.

Wolf it's something that has to be done to keep the lines drawn clear for spammers. Most spammers think they're "just trying to share," so across-the-board rules are very needed in this regard.

You could first PM the member and explain the deal, so that the member can change his signature in all discretion. That would be the courteous approach instead of brutishly deleting it in front of everybody.

But Wolf, nobody noticed till you made an issue of it.

Get over yourself. This site as you know is run by volunteers, who have a life away from the site. Craven handles a lot of spam on a daily basis. If someone violates a stated rule the moderators have every right to deal with it as they see fit. Simple.

Wolf,

In a perfect world I'd have time to walk each member through each and every rule with personalized PMs. In a perfect world a link that needs to be changed can be taken out back and changed privately.

Unfortunately I am not sure that it is possible to have a signature changed. Except by doing it "in front of everybody" as you say.

Nothing is so easy as for the man who doesn't ahve to do it himself. You can easily chide me for not sending personalized PMs every time something like this happens because you don't have to commit your daily time to that endeavor.

I've tried the PM route in the past and it just means a timesink in which I am told that freedom of speech covers the ability to post porn spam on message boards or someone's latest petitions or that "God will punish" me (that actually happened) etc.

It's not like that's a great deal of fun. It'd be cool to just chill on a site with other people keeping the spam etc at bay.

And roger has it right. You got a whole lot more visibility for your link than it would have gotten. "Censorship" has an exotic allure. If it makes you feel any better I was just helping you promote it. ;-)

I fully respect what you guys are doing. That's not the problem. It's a matter of politeness. We don't treat everyone on this forum as if they were strange spammers, I would think. I'm not a newbie any more. It takes up just a tad more time to notify me in private as it takes to delete my signature in the open.

I'm not asking for an excuse -- I'm asking for you to understand what I mean. Think of the other person's reaction when you act.

wolf, don't worry about it. I for one would not have even noticed your link had this thread not developed. It's all good in the end my man, and PMing everyone regarding these sorts of things is really a pain. I have to side with Craven on this, it is just too much work, plain and simple, AND the site got a lot more exposure. I sympathize, and completely understand that the PM would indeed be more polite, but we need to have a little give and take here as well. Post away, and be happy. Spamming is a huge problem, and unfortunately, harsh measures need to be taken. It ain't personal.

As I said yesterday:

While I agree in principle that a private PM would be the nicer way to handle it, the rest of us would not of learned what the term "call to action" means had it been done privately.

As far as niceness goes, I'm not so sure starting a thread called "Censorship on A2K" to question what happened to your signature would go into the chapter on niceness either.